Changes at ABC News Assignment Desk

ABC News president David Westin has announced a restructuring of the newsgathering apparatus of the divison.

“The Desk will become a more active partner with the programs and platforms in choosing the right stories to cover,” Westin writes to the staff, in an email obtained by TVNewser. “The Desk in its current form has served us well for many years. But from now on, we will be asking more of it.”

To that end, “World News” senior producer Tom Nagorski has been named foreign managing editor and 15-year ABC News veteran David Reiter becomes domestic managing editor. Both will report directly to Kate O’Brian.

Nagorski is part of the “World News with Diane Sawyer” “rim” — the top producers who are closest to the program — where he will remain until a new senior is named.

As part of the restructuring we are undertaking at ABC News, we will
revamp our News Desk to make sure that we have all the editorial and
logistical power we need to assist everyone in covering the news,
wherever and whenever it happens. The Desk in its current form has
served us well for many years. But from now on, we will be asking more of it. The Desk will become a more active partner with the programs and platforms in choosing the right stories to cover, developing innovative ways to tell those stories, as well as handling all of our logistics.

The Desk will also take the lead in making sure that we take full
advantage of all that technology offers in the field and that we are
tailoring our use of that technology to the individual stories we cover.

To deliver on the new promise of the Desk, we are naming Tom Nagorski as our Foreign Managing Editor and David Reiter as our Domestic Managing Editor. Both will report directly to Kate O’Brian. Because Tom and David will be focused heavily on the editorial and creative, we will increase the responsibilities of the Logistics Desk in making sure we have the right resources deployed quickly to support all of our efforts.

Tom and David’s strengths speak for themselves. They bring a wealth of experience from their past assignments. All of us will be drawing on that experience as we explore new and better ways to gather and report the news around the world. Because of Tom Nagorski’s critical role at World News with Diane Sawyer, he will remain at the rim until we name his successor, even as he begins to assume some of his new responsibilities.

Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on their new positions.

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